European teams protest against PGL handing out invites for the Minor

European teams have been left at the short end of the stick after PGL decided to hand out four invites out of the eight possible positions for the EU PGL Minor. This is the first time in CSGO history that invites have been sent out for the Minors.

Representatives of 11 European teams have sent a letter to PGL. These teams include :

Alternate Attax

BPro

Crowns

ENCE

Epsilon

Guerilla Method

iGame.com

PENTA

Rogue

Kinguin

Tricked

The four teams to have received invitations to the tournament are Fnatic, Heroic, Hellraisers and Space Soldiers.

The letter sent by these representatives notes :

Dear Valve Corporation and PGL Esports,

A core value when it comes to CS:GO Majors and qualifiers is that all teams should have an equal

chance. There have never in the history of CS:GO Minor events been any direct invitations. Remember

that the challenger teams already have a long way to go to get to the Major, starting from online

qualifications, followed by the Minor events and finishing with the main Major qualifier. Inviting four

teams to an eight team Minor, and forcing all the other teams to compete against one another does not

seem fair.

Valve teaches to play fair, e.g. via banning coaches mid-round, because “the goal of [their] events is to

identify the best five-player CS teams”. That includes each team having the same conditions to play. So

why are there teams who are not equals but something more, deserving of direct invitations for the

Minor? By inviting four teams directly, it means under no circumstance can five of the teams who were

not invited qualify.

There is no definitive and agreed to CS:GO team ranking system, and as such there should not be any

direct invitations for Minor events. Alternatively, if e.g. the HLTV.org ranking were to be used, it should

be made clear to all teams, so they would know of a way to make their qualification route for the Major

easier in advance. All teams should qualify on the same conditions. A closed online qualifier with seeded

teams based on actual team ranking could be an agreed solution, but that is far away from the current

system we perceive as unfair.

Moreover, future information about Minor qualifiers and Minor events itself should be announced at least

a month prior to the start of online qualifications, to make sure teams can plan their schedules in

advance. Some events are bound to collide in today’s climate, but at least it will allow teams to choose

early on. The Major’s date is known a couple of months in advance, so it should not be a problem to set

dates for the online qualifiers at least a month before they begin. We understand fnatic and HellRaisers

have a scheduling conflict with EPICENTER, but while it is unfortunate, other teams who have signed

this letter have similar conflicts with other events. Had the minor and the qualification system been

announced earlier, perhaps more of them could have been avoided.

From the next Minor qualifiers on, we highly recommend combining the European and CIS qualifiers.

The main idea behind geographical divisions has always been to avoid high pings and guarantee all

teams fair conditions to compete in. That is not a valid concern for CIS region teams, who are playing in

European online tournaments on a daily basis. At present, the geographic division is also unclear for

certain teams. Essentially hosting a separate qualification for CIS teams that the rest of Europe cannot

participate in discriminates against the European teams. We believe the only valid reason for separating

qualifiers is ping, and for CIS it is not an issue. The qualifiers should be combined to ensure the best

European teams – a region most of CIS is considered a part of – qualify for the Minor, and then the

Major.

At first, in the next 48 hours, we expect Valve and PGL to change the ‘direct invitations’ to

We at Esprts feel that the minors should be an equal opportunity for all teams. The good teams should be able to qualify based on merit and not because they got the invites. Let the invites be for the legends for the Majors, the other teams should not be given special treatment just because they are well known.